Swimming
by AJ1123
Summary: The gaang stops to go swimming at some hot springs, and Toph feels a bit left out. However, when she nearly drowns, an unlikely hero comes to the rescue. Toph x Zuko


Just a little Zuko and Toph. This is actually the first fanfiction that I written since 2012 so that's 3 years! So I hope you all like it. R & R!

* * *

The Sunghi hot springs were located high in the Sunghi Mountains in the northern region of the earth kingdom. They were rumored to have mystical healing properties by the natives that lives around the mountains, but no one had climbed the path in hundreds of years. Bad weather, rockslides, and high cliffs made the climb too dangerous and thus the healing waters were lost to all. Except maybe those with a giant flying bison.

The gang, having heard rumors of the mystical hot springs, decided to stop by on one of their mini-vacations. They decided that if the hot springs were just that, hot springs, they could still swim and soak their weary bones. If the water did have healing properties, that would be a nice bonus.

They landed around noon when the sun was high in the sky. Everyone was really excited for the day off and immediately changed into swimwear.

Except for Toph. She hated water and she hated swimming. She liked to have both her feet firmly on the ground at all times where she could see the world around her. It was when she was in the water that she really truly felt blind.

"You coming, Toph?" Aang asked.

"I'm good here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Someone has to keep an eye on Appa."

"Okay, suit yourself." She could feel the entire group running towards the water. Then she heard splashes and shouts and laughing. They sounded like they were having fun.

She heard Suki giggling as Sokka shouted that he was king of the mountain. Knowing Sokka he was probably standing on the smallest rock he could find. She could hear Katara teaching Aang some new waterbending technique—never a day off for that girl. And she could even hear Zuko talking about how his Uncle Iroh loved hot springs. It made her feel left out and immeasurably lonely. Even the odd one out of the group was enjoying himself, and she was sitting pathetically on the sidelines.

But the thought of swimming made her heart sink. Beyond being unable to see in the water, she also couldn't swim. Thoughts of swimming always filled her head with memories of gasping for air, water filling lungs, and pressure as she sunk. A tinge of panic always overcame her when thinking about swimming.

So instead she decided to take a walk. She was on a mountain! So she might as well make the best of it.

She could tell that there was a roughhewn path that led away from their little campsite. She could tell it went higher up the mountain and the thought of being on the top of the mountain with all that earth miles and miles beneath her made her feel tingly and excited.

Toph climbed the path slowly at first. There was a drop to her left that was rather high, but the path was rather wide, and the higher she went, the more confident she felt. Soon she was practically jogging up the path, thrilled by the wind tugging at her hair and clothes.

She had to pause several times to lift boulders that had fallen and obscured the path. Toph threw them over the edge of the cliff only to hear them crash loudly below. It was both satisfying and just plain fun.

Toph was gone maybe fifteen minutes when tragedy struck.

In her excitement, she neglected to realize that part of the path ahead was dangerously eroded. Had she noticed the weakness of the rock before she stepped on it, she could have safety moved across using her bending. However, she didn't realize her mistake until it was too late.

The rock crumbled beneath her feet and she found herself falling.

Toph bended a rock out of the side of the cliff in an attempt to stop her descent but she crashed into it heavily and tumbled back into the nothingness. Unable to see or feel the ground, she was helpless and she braced herself to crash into the ground.

Instead, she was swallowed by warm, thick water.

She plunged straight towards the bottom of the spring which was surprisingly deep. Toph felt her lungs fill with water as she kicked her legs and swung her arms, trying to claw her way to the surface. If she could just get some air in her lungs she might be able to call for help or at least find her way back to land. Yet, she just sunk like a stone. Every time she gained an inch, she sunk three. Panic filled her from head to toe and she knew that this was end. Her life would be extinguished like a tiny flame and her friends would probably never find her body, wondering what happened to their friend for the rest of their lives.

Toph closed her eyes and felt herself losing consciousness.

Then there were strong arms around her, pulling her upwards. The person held her close as they kicked to the surface. Her head broke the surface and she gasped and coughed and wheezed. She felt herself return to full consciousness as oxygen reached her brain and she almost immediately felt a splitting headache settle in.

Her savior began towing her back to shore and pulled her onto the soft sand. She lay on her back, still spitting up water, and despite being soaked, she recognized that some of the water streaming down her face was tears.

"Thanks." She said her voice weak.

"Are you okay?" A familiar voice asked. Zuko.

She had assumed it was Aang or Sokka—on account of the flat chest she had been pressed against. The last person that she had expected was Zuko, but she was grateful nonetheless.

"I hope you don't think I'm creepy—" Toph just knew that sentence was going to be creepy no matter what words came out of his mouth next. Then he said, "I was following you up the path. Which was lucky, I guess, because I saw you fall in."

"Why? You stalking me?" She snapped, sitting straight up and turning in his direction.

"No, no. I was bored. So I saw you leaving the group and was curious. I was far behind you most of the way and I was going to call out to you when you fell." He paused. Then he said in a quiet voice, "I don't really enjoy swimming."

"Well, if you didn't notice, I don't like it much either."

"That's because you can't swim." He said matter-of-factly.

Toph opened her mouth to protest out of habit but remembered that that was absolutely true. So instead she said, "You can obviously swim but you don't like swimming, so why would my ability to swim make swimming enjoyable."

He chuckled. "I'm a firebender. Water isn't exactly my friend, but being the son of the Firelord, I was taught to swim at a young age."

"I don't see why your daddy being a pompous melon-head has anything to do with swimming." Toph laid back down.

"As the Firelord's son, I was taught _everything._ Every bending technique, the history of every nation, how to embroider, how to write in calligraphy, etiquette rules from all over the world, and how to fence, fight, and swim."

Toph decided that made sense.

They both sat in silence for a few minutes. Toph felt the pain in her lungs subside and her heartrate return to normal. The headache that was threatening to split her head open subsided.

Finally Zuko said, "I can teach you to swim."

Toph's eyes widened. "No way. I am not going near that water again."

"It would be good. This isn't the first time you have fallen in water, and considering that you travel with waterbenders on a flying bison that frequently flies over bodies of water, it may be the difference between you living and dying."

"Way to be grim there, man."

"I'm just being honest," He said, a bit of edge to his voice. Toph did appreciate his honestly. It wasn't her speaking really, it was her fear. She would never admit to being scared though. She'd rather do anything than admit that the thought of getting back in the water made her chest seize up or admit that she would nightmares about drowning or admit that others had offered to teach her to swim and she lied her way out of having to take the lesson. After a few second he said, "It's okay if you're scared."

"Scared?!" She shouted, jumping to her feet. "You're talking to the Blind Bandit. I am not afraid of anything or anyone."

"Okay then, let's go swimming." He said, his voice cold and even.

Instantly, she picked up on the manipulation. Another thing she admired about Zuko was his manipulation skills. They were almost as good as hers, but not quite and because of this fact, she always saw right through him.

"I'm hungry. Are you hungry?" She asked, wanting to do anything but.

"Oh, come on. Don't be a scaredy-cat-owl."

"Shut up." She snapped, kicking sand in his direction. A groan told her that she had hit her mark. "I am not scared. I am just tired and hungry and the others are probably wondering where we are."

"Sounds like excuses to me."

"You really want me to hurt you." Toph deadpanned.

"Then you'll just prove me right." She could hear the smug look on his face and she wanted to smack it off.

Instead she conceded. "Alright. Whatever. I'm not scared. Let's go swimming. It's fun for the whole stinkin' family!" Her voice thick with sarcasm.

She stripped off her tunic so she was only wearing her undergarments. They were exactly like the wraps that Katara wore when she went swimming. Only Toph's were considerably more yellowed since she played in the mud and rarely washed her clothes. She could feel eyes on her.

"Paint a picture, it will last longer." She snapped.

"I wasn't…I mean…have you ever washed those?"

"You are dangerously close to a boulder to the face." She said, stomping towards the edge of the water. Then when she felt the water on her toes, she turned towards where Zuko stood and said, "Coming, hot head?"

"Don't call me that," he muttered as he joined her.

Then he waded into the water until it was up to his waist. As he turned around to tell Toph to come out with him, he realized that all of this would be much harder than he originally thought. Teaching Toph to swim would require her full, unwavering trust since she couldn't see how deep the water was. She also wouldn't be able to mimic Zuko's movements by watching. He suddenly wondered if goading her into this was such a good idea.

Toph hovered at the edge of the water, trying to figure out how she could still get out of this. She could feign an injury, a sudden illness, or she could just runaway. Zuko couldn't make her do anything she didn't want to do, but she didn't want to deal with his endless teasing and judgement if she backed out now. Plus, he did have a point about it being a good idea for her to learn how to swim.

She heard Zuko come back towards her. He splashed through the water until he was in front of her. He said, "I'm going to take your hand, okay?"

The thought of taking his hand made her heart flutter in her chest. If she wasn't half-drowned when he had rescued her, she would have lost her breath anyway just from being pressed against his chest. She would never admit it, but she found Zuko attractive.

Toph felt herself tense up as he took her hand. Then he led her into the water up to her ankles. "Relax." He said softly, not letting go of her hand. She realized that she was holding her breath and let it out slowly She swore she heard him chuckle.

"Don't laugh at me."

"I wasn't laughing at you exactly. It's just your face. You're all scrunched up. Seriously, relax. I've got you. I won't let anything happen."

And just like that she felt her heart flutter in her chest again. She was nervous because of the swimming but she was also nervous because his words were so soft and sweet and directed at her. She hoped her face wasn't red.

"We're going to head a little deeper. Probably up to your shins." He warned, walking her further in. With each step, her nervous went from being about holding Zuko's hand to being about a possible watery grave. The panic was returning. Zuko seemed to sense this. "We can stop."

"No, no. I'm fine." No witty comeback, no quick retort—Toph really was nervous.

The next half-an-hour was spent with Zuko convincing and couching Toph deeper into the water. They had gotten to waist-deep when Toph froze up. She wouldn't move, she couldn't move, and Zuko wasn't sure what to do.

"We can head back." He offered. No response. Her hand was squeezing his so hard that it hurt yet he didn't remove his hand. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she seemed to be holding her breath. "Toph, it's okay. We'll go back."

For five minutes, they stood in silence.

Then Zuko decided that it was time to get out of the water. Toph was way too nervous. So he effortlessly scooped her up bridal-style to carry her to shore. The second she was in the air, she started yelling. "No, no! Put me down. Put me down right now." She struck out, catching him in the side of the head.

In shock, he dropped her.

She fell into the water, and despite being in waist-deep water, she felt the panic once more. She began thrashing around and when her hands met a strong arm reaching down to help her up, she clutched on tightly.

Zuko pulled her out of the water and she threw her arms around him and held on tightly. He was the most stable thing near her. She pressed her face into his shoulder, embarrassed and scared. She could hear his heartbeat racing in his chest.

After about a minute, she realized the comprising position that she was in. She leapt backwards, nearly falling again, and punched Zuko as hard as she could in his shoulder. He yelped and doubled over in pain.

"That's for dropping me, you idiot." She snapped and then stomped back to shore. Toph quickly redressed, ignoring the fact that she was still wet, and began walking.

She heard Zuko splash out of the water and pull his clothes back on as well. "Wait!" He called running after her.

"Go away." She snapped, trying to sound as menacing as possible so he would leave her alone. She felt embarrassed and angry and confused. She really just wanted to be alone.

"You're going the wrong way." He said.

 _Oh._ She stopped in her tracks. He started walking in another direction and she followed.

They walked for several minutes in silence, then Zuko said, "When I was little I was afraid of fire."

Toph couldn't help but laugh aloud at that. In fact, she laughed so hard that they had to stop so she could catch her breath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She said, wiping tears off her face. Who ever heard of a firebender who was afraid of fire? It was like finding an earthbender who was afraid of dirt.

"Are you finished?" Zuko asked, but his tone wasn't bitter or upset. Toph nodded. "Anyway, I thought fire was scary. Thanks to my father I had seen the destructive properties of fire. He made us watch as he burned entire villages to the ground. When it came time to be taught how to firebend, I prayed to the spirits that I couldn't do it. Azula had already shown evidence of her abilities and she was younger than me. I hoped that meant I would be a non-bender. No such luck. For years, I hated being a firebender. I like the power but I still had this fear. It stuck with for years, causing me to be timid when it came to bending. I never really let go of that fear until I faced my father in an Agni Kai and he gave me this scar."

Toph was silent. She didn't know what to say. An apology didn't seem right and a crude retort just wasn't appropriate. Eventually she asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because fear is natural but you can and will overcome it." He said.

Toph didn't respond and they started walking again. She went over his words in her head. After a minute or so, the silence started to bother Toph so she said, "Everyone always mentions your scar, but I have no idea what it looks like."

She wasn't sure if it was an insensitive comment and she didn't really care. She was curious and figured he would forgive her if it offended her.

He stopped walking, so she did too. "Uh…well…it covers the left side of my face. It is really red right around my eye but is surrounded by lighter red scar tissue." It occurred to him that she might not know what red was, but continued. "It has caused my eye to be permanently narrowed."

Toph decided he was terrible at describing things and she should make him do it more often. She loved hearing him be flustered.

Then he said, "It's just kind of ugly."

Toph didn't know what to say to that. She had never seen a scar. She didn't really know what one would look like and whether it was ugly or not. She couldn't say it wasn't ugly, because she truly didn't know. She had no visible concept of ugly either. So she stayed quiet.

"Come on. Let's get back." Zuko said, sounding embarrassed. She did feel bad despite telling herself that she wouldn't feel bad for wanting to know.

Toph didn't let him leave though. She said, "I don't know what scars look like. Heck, I don't have a concept of ugliness, so I don't know what to say, but I can say that I like you, and a scar—ugly or not—doesn't change that."

Zuko felt touched. He felt his entire face turn red all the way up to his ears. He was glad that Toph couldn't see it. She would have teased him until the end of time. She would have shouted about it up and down the mountain.

"Do you want to touch it?" He asked. He felt dumb right after he asked it. Why would she want to touch it? It was so dumb.

"Uh…sure." Toph said, much to Zuko's surprise.

"Okay, give me your hands." He took her hands and placed it on his cheek right where the burns began. He kept his hand on hers to help guide her along the scar. "Be careful of my eye."

"What if I'm tired of being the only blind member of the group?"

"I think you like being the only one." He teased.

"Yeah, it makes it that much more impressive when I kick all your butts. Plus, you have to admit that the Blind Bandit is coolness nickname ever."

"It is cool," He mused.

He guided her hand along the rough, bumpy skin. It felt severe. Toph couldn't even image what it actually looked like. Maybe it looked like rocks. She knew the general shape of rocks and maybe it looked kind of like the bumps and ridges of a rock. Maybe comparing scar tissue to a rock was stupid, but it was her only point of reference.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore," He said, his voice tinged with pain and memories.

"I'm sorry." She said, despite having nothing to be sorry for.

Because her hand was still on his face, she could feel him smile. That made her smile.

He removed his hand from hers, but she kept running her fingers along his scar. Zuko had a blush that crept up his neck all the way to his ears, and Toph had color that spread across her cheeks. Toph couldn't see Zuko's blush, of course, and Zuko was so focused on Toph's soft touch that he didn't notice hers.

Zuko assumed Toph's hands would be tough and scratchy, but instead they were soft and gentle. Maybe years of playing in the mud had made her hands soft. Zuko knew his own hands were calloused and rough from years of accidently burning himself. He really enjoyed the feel of her hands touching his face.

"Zuko…" She said softly, causing him to look up and met her eyes. He noticed the blush on her cheeks then and that made his blush grow deeper.

Toph's hand drifted from his scar to his cheek where she gently cupped his face. She brought her other hand up as well. Zuko felt his breath catch in his throat and time seemed to slow as Toph leaned towards him.

Her lips were chapped and dry when they met his but he still felt a tingle. As soon as it began it was over and she was leaning back.

She looked tentative, nervous, and Zuko had no idea what to say, so he kissed her again. He captured her lips with his and this kiss lasted much longer. Toph leaned into Zuko, planting her hands on his chest as they kissed.

The kiss was desperate and needy, saying all the things that the two emotionally stunted people had trouble saying. It was months of lingering touches, witty banter that was vaguely flirty, and late night conversations that were deep and revealing.

When they parted, both were out of breath and had goofy smiles on their faces.

"Wow." Zuko muttered.

Toph almost immediately socked him in the shoulder—the same shoulder she had hit earlier. He groaned and knew it would leave a truly nasty bruise. "If you tell anyone about this, I will rearrangement your face."

Zuko couldn't help himself. "You like my face. And I will tell that to everyone when we get back to camp!" He took off running.

Toph began chasing after him. "Don't you dare!"

It was all playful however. Toph didn't use earthbending to stop him and Zuko didn't use firebending to get ahead. So Toph caught up and they resumed walking normally.

They were getting close to camp now. The gang's voice could be heard in the distance, laughing and talking. They could hear Katara talking about how the water's didn't have healing properties but at least they had a nice day. Toph and Zuko shared that sentiment.

Zuko was surprised when he felt Toph's hand intertwine with his. His heart wanted to pound out of his chest.

"Zuko…" She began. He stopped walking and she did too. They still held hands. "I think I'm ready to learn how to swim."

He smiled. "Maybe another day. I could use some food and a nap."

She laughed. "Me too."

The two finished walking to the others, hand in hand, and smiling from ear to ear.

* * *

Well, there it is. Let me know what you think.


End file.
